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Life-Changing Oatmeal Cookies

Bouchon Bakery is a gift from the heavans. Seriously. Thomas Keller’s cookbook is a magical mix of elegant food pictures and delicious recipes. I would buy the book for the pictures alone… they’re that gorgeous!

Now, let’s talk recipes. They’re semi-life-changing. I made macarons for the first time using Keller’s formula, and I’m hooked! But, the real show stopper is the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. OH. My. GOODNESS. It’s phenomanal. My search for the best/perfect/OMGdelicious oatmeal cookie is officially over. After enduring my fair share of lacy, crispy, lopsided, snowball-ish, flavorless failures, I can officially say that Keller’s recipe produces THE BEST oatmeal raisin cookies. Perfectly chewy, pleasantly spicy, and visually appealing, these treats are mind-blowing. They’re worth making a double-batch to hoard in the freezer. That’s saying a lot, coming from a raisin-hater.

P.S. Happy four-day weekend! Actually, only some of us high-schoolers are off today. Don’t ask me why…. I’m just rollin’ with it. I wouldn’t want to be that kid who accidentally reminds Mr. So-and-So to check the homework that nobody’s completed. Sometimes, the best strategy is to just shut up and be happy. Words of wisdom right there ;)

Recipe Notes: The entire recipe uses grams/ounces. I know it’s annoying, but it really does help with achieving consistent results! Plus, do you really want to measure out 1/2 cup + 3 1/2 tbsp of sugar? I didn’t think so. Also, feel free to add chocolate instead of raisins, but I prefer golden raisins and dried cranberries.

1) Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Lightly whisk the mixture to evenly distribute the ingredients.

2) In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachement, cream the butter on medium- low speed. It should get to a mayonnaise-like consistency. Add the sugars, and beat for 3-4 minutes or until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed, and add the eggs and vanilla, mixing until just combined. Add the flour mixture in two additions, mixing for 20 seconds in between on low speed. Pour in the oats and raisins and mix until evenly combined. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

3) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Roll about 2 tbsp of dough into a ball, and space each round evenly on a cookie sheet covered in parchment. Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. The centers may seem a bit soft, but they will firm up while they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for 5 minutes. Then, transfer them to cooling racks to cool completely.

13 thoughts on “Life-Changing Oatmeal Cookies”

Yum, these sound great! I’ve got the Bouchon Bakery book, but haven’t tried this recipe yet. Will definitely be giving it a go now (though as a fellow raisin hater, will be using the chocolate chips instead!)

Aaah! Yes, you should definitely try it out… maybe even with a few golden raisins and dried cranberries sprinkled in! I surprised myself by liking the raisin cookies more than the chocolate ones. You never know! Thank you, by the way, for stopping by and commenting. You’re the first person who I don’t know in real-life to do so :) Happy baking!

Hi! I love this post! I always crave a good oatmeal raisin cookie…and “life-changing” is a pretty good way to convince someone to make these! Maybe I’ll add in some dark chocolate tho, I love me some chocolate-raisin-cinnamon-oatmeal combo…mmmmm… great pictures! :D

Sorry to hear that they came out flat! Chilling the dough longer would probably help a bit. Also, did you use parchment or a silpat? I find that cookies spread much more when I use a silpat. I’m making these again this weekend, so I’ll let you know if I think of anything else that could cause them to spread. Thanks so much for the feedback!

These were really good. I used a 1/2 cup of golden raisins as that is all I had. Next time I’ll definitely add more as they’re so so good in cookies. Also, as much as I agree with scaling baking ingredients to get consistent results with batches over time, I just went with the usual cup measurements and they turned out great. When I rolled mine, they retained their rounded shape, which I really like. I didn’t add the extra tablespoons of sugars and flours, and also just used one large egg and one stick of unsalted butter. Oh, speaking of salt – I only used on teaspoon of kosher salt and that was plenty. Another 1/2 teaspoon would have been much too salty for my taste. I also used white whole wheat flour from King Arthur. These were super yummy. Thank you so much!

Yay! Glad to hear that these turned out yummy using cup measurements! I’m sure your comment will be very helpful to other folks who don’t want to use a scale. And yes, I do tend to bake with a tad more salt than usual… I actually increased the salt by 1/4 tsp from the original recipe ;) Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting! Happy baking!

Hi Megan, I just baked these cookies and I love the texture! I used a cup of dried cranberries instead of raisins. Just one question, mine turns out to be on the salty side. I couldn’t really taste the sweetness of these cookies. Is it really the 1.5tsp of salt that made these cookies a bit salty or there can be other reason?

Thanks for letting me know about the salt problem! I’ll reduce it to 1 tsp in the recipe. I don’t rememeber my cookies coming out super salty though. Did you use unsalted butter? Kosher salt? Table salt is usually much finer than Kosher, so using 1 1/2 tsp of table salt would lead to really, really salty cookies. Sea salt, of course, is just more salty to begin with. So, if you want to try these again, I would reduce the salt to 1 tsp and make sure that you’re using unsalted butter and Kosher salt. If you don’t have access to Kosher salt, go ahead and use about 1/2 tsp of table salt. Thanks again for the feedback! Sorry about this!
P.S. Your blog is really cute!

No need to aplogize! Must be because I use table salt. It is not common to use Kosher salt in Hong Kong and I didn’t pay full attention to the recipe. I will def try to make it again with less table salt =) Thanks again for your reply!

I couldn’t wait to make these and they are in the oven now. I got about 9 cookies from the recipe from the cookie scoop that I used. I find that the cookies have too much spread. I used weighed ingredients for the most part. I think the trouble may be with the eggs. I weighed one egg and it was 52 g. Then I added another egg to the measurement and it was over 100 grams of course. I didn’t quite know what to do, so I stirred the eggs until they broke and poured the mixture until it reached 62g, Would you recommend that next time that I just use one egg and leave it at that? Also I am baking the cookies at different lengths on time in the fridge, hoping that longer times may lead to less spread. Not happening.

Hi!
Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you! I hate it when cookies spread too much! But, you did the right thing; lightly whisking the eggs to break the yolk is the best way to measure out the correct amount! Next time, I would still go with 62 grams. Did you bake with silpat (silicon baking mats) or parchment paper? I find that cookies baked on silpat tend to spread more than those baked on parchment paper. Refrigeration should definitely help. Did you use old-fashioned oats? Were the baking sheets cool when you put the dough mounds on them? David Lebovitz has a great troubleshooting post on his blog about spreading cookies that basically sums up all the possible causes I can think of! Check it out, try the cookies again, and let me know if they turn out better! Hope this helps a bit. Thanks so much for stopping by! :)